In an effort to protect the life and liberty of citizens, the Government on Thursday night decided to amend the Criminal Procedure Code on the basis of the Law Commission recommendations.
The decision taken by the Union Cabinet to introduce a Bill in the current session of Parliament would result in a better, effective and humane criminal justice system, Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet.
Declining to divulge the details of the amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, he said the modifications will be on the basis of recommendations of the Law Commission in its 154th, 177th and 178th reports.
"Implementation of the recommendations of the 154th report would result in a better, effective and humane criminal justice system," he said.
Chidambaram said the amendments also intended to protect the citizens against indiscriminate arrests and interrogation without the presence of lawyers. It seeks to provide rights of the arrested persons to have family or friend informed of the arrests, he said, adding that the measure would ensure that trials do not drag on.
The proposed changes in the CrPC, which come in the backdrop of rampant phenomenon of hostile witnesses and perjury, is expected to allow victims of a crime to file appeal to check possible collusion between the defence and prosecution lawyer.
It is understood that the amendments seek to confer on the victim's kin the right to appeal against verdicts favouring the accused if they feel that the prosecution had sabotaged the case. This move is likely to pave way in cases like that of Priyadarshani Mattoo and Jessica Lall where the kin of the victims felt that prosecution had not handled their plea for justice well.
Now, once the amendments are cleared by Parliament, these people can also become a party along with the state and fight for the justice against the accused. The changes will put an end to the practice of witnesses turning hostile after recording their confessional statements before a magistrate and meet the demand of law enforcement agencies for protecting witnesses from pressure of any kind.
The report prepared by the Law Commission headed by B P Jeevan Reddy had suggested that it was necessary to amend section 164 of CrPC so as to make it mandatory for the investigating officer to get statements of all material witnesses questioned by him during the course of investigation recorded on oath by the magistrate.
